Second Best
by bungiefan89
Summary: The Pillar of Autumn was not the only ship to escape the fall of Reach. There was another, and it didn't have a SPARTAN II cyborg.
1. Preperations

BEHOLD! My third fic thus far, my first fic that lives up to my alias of _bungie_fan89, and my first non-humor fic.

All milestones aside, I came up with the idea for this fic a long time ago, and my inspiration of this fic will not be reveled until it's conclusion.

I do not own the Halo series (If one game and a sequel could be called a series, not to say that I mock the name of the best first-person shooter ever made.), including Reach, the SPARTAN-II project, the _Pillar of Autumn_, etc. I do however own the ship _Judicator_ and all of it's occupants, except for Solipsil who is owned by Bungie.

ONWARD!

Reach. One of humankind's greatest achievements in colonization. It was a planet like the ones scientists and astronomers had been dreaming of for countless generations. It was a planet like Earth in so many respects, that some referred to it as 'Earth's lost sister' when it was first discovered and analyzed. Once faster-than-light travel came to an existence, humanity as a whole desired to do little more than visit this new world.

The government of humanity, which bore no banner or name, eventually divided itself into branches. One of these branches was the UNSC (United Nations Space Command), and it undertook all things that were space related. It was a vastly larger success than former attempts and failures of government based space divisions like the NASA of more than half a millennium ago. Now that humanity was united as a whole, the infinite boundaries of space beckoned and humanity followed with an unstoppable urge to explore the unknown. Reach was one of humanities first and most successful targets for colonization.

Of the estimated 70 billion humans spread out across the stars, 48 lived on Earth, 37 lived on Reach, and the remaining 15 were scattered about on other planets and moons. Humanity had tamed itself into a species of potential, of exploration.

People were still far from perfect however. Fights still broke out, people were still murdered, women were still raped, illegal drugs were still sold, people with wallets were still mugged, and some people still smoked. These were sad facts that everyone had to accept as being a reality, so there was still a universal military that mostly acted as a police force. Because traveling into space was now so simple a thing, the entire military was controlled by a branch of the UNSC known as the Office of Naval Intelligence, or ONI; which oversaw the public throughout the universe. Things were not perfectly controlled, but a moderation of respect to law was undeniable.

That was humanity, and humanity was looking rather good.

Then the Covenant came.

Their introduction was spread fast as people eventually got word of how the first contact they had with other intelligent life was nothing but hostile. People were introduced to full fledged warfare for the first time in generations, and this was not a war against other humans but against creatures that could not be negotiated with, could not be reasoned with, and you could not beg for mercy with. War was the only option humanity had, and if humanity lost, then it would not be like other wars of past centuries where the losers were beaten down only to the point that they couldn't fight any more. This was a war where the losers would no longer exist; where not only all of there lives would be taken, but their cities, culture, and history would all be completely obliterated. This was the worst kind of war imaginable, and it was one that humans knew they had to win.

Every day, military and civilian outposts fell in a massacre. Every day, humanity learned that a distant possibility of defeat was slowly getting closer. And every day people held on to hope. Hope that one day the tide of war would be miraculously changed. Hope that they could find a way to effectively combat the Covenant. Hope that there just might be a negotiation of peace through some unseen way.

Most of that hope was lost when the Covenant assaulted Reach.

Reach was attacked on all sides as Covenant ships bombarded the surface of the planet with their alien weaponry. Millions were killed instantly, and those ships that tried to retaliate against the blockade were annihilated without mercy. The _Pillar of Autumn _was the only spacecraft able to escape the attack, and was a shining ray of hope in a dark sky of clouds for those who knew of its escape. The_ Pillar of Autumn_ also carried with it the last of the super-solders that were a result of the SPARTAN-II project, and 117, also known as Master Chief, was also supposed to be the top soldier of the group. Everyone knew how all of the other cyborgs of the SPARTAN-II project were whipped out in the attack on Reach, but as long as one remained, hope remained.

Some of this was not entirely true.

SPARTAN-117 was indeed the only SPARTAN-II soldier to escape the destruction of Reach, but the _Pillar of Autumn_ was not the only ship to get out of the attack. There had been one other; _Judicator_. _Judicator_ was not a Halcyon-class warship like the _Pillar of Autumn_, rather a warship of slightly smaller caliber, equal in class to the _Pillar of Autumn's_ smaller sister ship, _In Amber Clad_.

_Judicator_ had just been finishing its patrol that took it to the far side of Marco, the more distant of Reach's two moons, when the Covenant attacked. Being so distant from Reach, and partially hidden behind the moon, _Judicator_ was undetected when the Covenant fleet warped in from some distant location. The crew of _Judicator_ was grief stricken when they learned the planet they had been guarding was being set aflame. Nothing could compare to the hopelessness that they felt; the slap in the face that they received at knowing their planet, and all of the people on it were quickly being destroyed. _Judicator_ was not a direct-combat craft, it was a support craft; a wing-mate of sorts that was designed to provided additional firepower and cover for the larger, more powerful Halcyon-class ships. _Judicator_ wouldn't stand a chance against an entire fleet of Covenant capital ships. These were all facts that were too hard to take for those who were on board _Judicator_.

The commander of _Judicator_ flipped the switch labeled 'ALL DEACKS' and spoke into the microphone on the armrest of her command seat, "All personal hear this: this is your commander Heather Cole speaking. I believe that you all have the right to know that as of just a few minutes ago a large Covenant fleet warped in and started attacking Reach, the very planet that we are defending. We are currently partially hidden behind the moon Marco from the detection of the Covenant fleet, and sense they over-shot us when they arrived; they are unaware of our presence. I am currently receiving data that tells me that less than 68 of the fleet of this colony remains and _Sacred Promise_, the ship that we have been for so long flying along side as a wing-mate, has lethally collided with Reach's moon Polo. We are left with a choice it seems. Alpha: We attack the enemy lines from behind as best we can, defending this planet to our deaths. Or Bravo: We can follow the example that has just been set by the _Pillar of Autumn_, by making ourselves visible, and try to lead as many Covenant ships away from Reach as possible. You have 420 seconds to cast your vote. That will be all for now."

Judicator had been a bit of an experimental ship in one way or another. It had been the designated ship to be the first to try out a new form of command. The idea was that each member of personnel on board, regardless of rank, always had a small 'vote communicator', as it was referred to, which would be used to allow the user to cast a vote upon given choices of command whenever the opportunity arose. At first, many disapproved of the concept as it would take to much time for a polling of decisions to take place, but that was why Judicator was the first to try this out.

"So what do you think is going to happen commander?" The AI construct of _Judicator_ inquired as she became visible on her holographic display on the commander's arm rest.

"I'm not too sure Solipsil." Heather responded to the blue figure of a woman that was floating in front of her, "No matter what, I gravely feel that none aboard this ship will live long enough to die of old age. I know that our troops are smart and strong, our ship is in proficient condition, and our morale has always been high, but if any crew survives this fight, it will be that of the _Pillar of Autumn_, not the _Judicator_."

"Because the _Pillar of Autumn_ has the last of the SPARTAN-II's?" Solipsil asked, "Or because they have a more powerful ship?"

"Both I think." Heather replied as she ran her hand through her short red hair, and scratched the back of her neck in a pondering manner, "I mean not to say that we are competing with them; I know Cortana was one of your... 'friends'... as far as AI go and I respect that."

"I suppose that you could say that." Solipsil replied, "But still, while the _Pillar of Autumn_ may have a SPARTAN-II solider, we have you."

"Solipsil, that matter is almost irrelevant right now." The commander protested.

"Heather Joanna Cole:" Solipsil started reciting, "red hair, brown eyes, female, Caucasian, born in the year 2520. Received bachelor's degree from Gutenberg University in 2544 and enlisted in the ONI of the UNSC during the same year. Volunteered to be part of the ongoing at that time special project SPARTAN and was trained from 2544 until 2547 when SPARTAN project was abandoned and all work was concentrated on the more successful SPARTAN-II project. Considering the latest stats of the SPARTAN project before it was abandoned, you were the top of the class. Also in 2547, you were transferred over to the ship _Judicator_ as an ODST with your expert SPARTAN-I training. From 2547 to 2550, you rose through the ranks with ease and are now commander of the same ship for the second consecutive year. Is that an inaccurate summary?"

"No. It is not." She sighed, "I suppose you're right. I was after all part of the SPARTAN-I project, and the only reason they stopped with it and started a new one was because my-"

"-loyalty was not 'bred' into you. I know. I know. And you never really thought that was fair judgment." Solipsil finished for her.

"What you speak is true Solipsil." The commander admitted, "At any rate, I think that the best option in this situation would be to follow my father's-!" She caught herself in mid sentence in respect for law #536; one of the oldest ONI laws. Law #536 stated that family members never be apart of the same ship, squadron, or any individual division of troops. This ensured that things like family relations did not cloud the judgment of any member of the ONI during a time of crisis, and when referring to other family members also enlisted in service; one must refer to them by their proper UNSC rank, not family related name or otherwise. This law was always in effect during times of peace and war.

"I-I mean Cole protocol," the commander stuttered, a rare thing for her to do, "and make a blind jump to a non-Earth-bound vector."

"Then why not just make that decision ma'am? After all, this whole idea of polling for a decision is entirely optional, and in a time of crisis like this; isn't a single quick decision wiser?" The AI asked.

"I'm surprised that the idea of democracy has lasted this long throughout human history;" Heather explained, "I think we should keep it alive."

"Commander Cole, the votes have been cast, shall I present the results?" Tarek Conner, one of her sub-commanders said.

"Affirmative." She nodded to the man who had occupied that very same post and rank ever sense she was first enlisted on this ship. A holographic interface appeared next to Solipsil and the two women (if Solipsil could be considered a real female) both smiled at the results.

"45,000 votes to Bravo," Solipsil declared, "zero to Alpha, and zero undecided. Look's like we've either got a super tight-nit crew or a glitch in our system that I cannot detect!"

Heather flipped the switch labeled 'ALL DEACKS' once again and spoke into the microphone, "This is Commander Cole speaking. After viewing your unanimous decision, I have decided to go through with the _Pillar of Autumn's_ example, and try to lead as many of the Covenant forces away from Reach as possible. Prepare ship for high turbulence. That is all for now." She flicked the switch off, and then turned on the HSSC (Head of Star-Side Combat).

A small viewing screen folded out in front of her and on it was displayed the face of a fat, gruff looking man with a thick beard that looked as though it didn't meet hygiene standards. He also wore an eye-patch as black as his skin with UNSC labeled on it. "Nice li'll speech there carrot-top!" He said in an amused voice, "You called?"

"Not now Musket!" She yelled at the screen with fire in her eyes. The display made the man on the screen jump a bit in his chair, and caused the various crew-members around her to tense up and start monitoring their computers twice as fast. Heather was not by any means a sight for sore eyes, but when she was angered; everyone suddenly remembered that her SPARTAN-I training had taught her how to break 5 bones of an average Elite before they hit the ground, and more than 13 bones in an average human, with her bare hands. A while ago, some fresh young recruit of _Judicator_ (Buck-private, barely passed boot camp on account of disciplinary issues) thought it might be funny if he were to shine a laser pointer at one of the commander's breasts as she walked through the hall one day. The man was not only relived of duty from the ship, but was also left without any thumbs, a somehow permanently broken hip, a smashed nose, 15 missing teeth, and broken knee-joints. He was too afraid to press charges against her. "Our very lives are resting on the end of your nose, and I can't have you to sneeze! Now I need a weapons and antigrave deflectors status report _immediately_!"

"All Right! All Right!" Musket replied in a slightly aggravated voice. Tyler Musket was the former commander of _Judicator_, and had been so for 34 of the 57 years of his life. But when he went on leave to visit his family for a week, a thunderstorm broke out in the middle of the night around his winter home. He had gotten out of bed to get a glass of water when a bolt of lightning struck an old rotten tree in the back yard, which fell upon the house. As fate would have it, the bulk of the tree smashed through the roof of the kitchen, and Tyler had not been killed but quite brutally crippled by the falling timber of the tree and mostly wooden house. The muscles in his legs had been damaged beyond all repair, he had lost his right eye, and though his left arm had been broken in many places and the medical doctors were able to fix it; it never worked the same again. Due to his poor physical condition, he was not able to continue his service as commander of _Judicator_, and was demoted to be HSSC of the same ship simply because of all the experience he had. It was probably because of this that Tyler was one of the few people who could push the relatively short limits of Heather's temper.

Tyler madly typed away at his keyboard and control panel, and in an amount of time that was longer than 'immediately'; he began depicting the ship's status. "Ummmm... we've got Main Canons Alpha through Dora at a combined average strength of 97 due to a slight lack of energy on Caesar's part. But secondary guns 1 through 24 are all at 100 on their energy ratings, and ready to fire on demand." Tyler said in a hurried voice, as he knew that the commander's pity for him did have it's bounds.

"Sound's like we might have a chance." Solipsil commented.

"How about the antigrave deflectors Musket?" Heather asked him.

The man typed away at his console for a little over three seconds and replied with a large grin on his bearded face, "Well ma'am; The indicators are currently registering at 110 power, and that's gona make things really pointy for us!" Antigrave deflectors worked on the still theoretical laws of the fabric of the universe. Every object has mass, and that mass pulls down on the fabric of the universe, causing gravity. An antigrave deflection system worked on the principles of anti-matter, and caused a 'spike' in the fabric of the universe rather than a 'dip', and reversed the effects of gravity. It wasn't as effective as the plasma shields that many Covenant warships carried, but it was the best the UNSC had to offer the ONI.

"One hundred ten percent may be rather pointy Musket, but we're talking about hit and run against an entire Covenant armada." Heather countered as she turned to the AI hovering in front of her, "Solipsil, how quickly can you bring this ship to CGS?"

"Snap of the fingers, commander." The blue hologram replied with an expression on her face that understood what was going through Heather's mind. After all, CGS stood for Conservative Ghost State. The ideology behind CGS, was that all lights inside and out of the ship were shut down, as well as all except for the most vital radio communications. The newly available energy was transfered over to things like the antigrave deflection system, gun turrets, etc., so that the ship was as invisible as could manage, and was ready to fight back stronger than under usual circumstances.

"I mean emergency lights too Solipsil." Heather added.

"Ma'am?" Solipsil asked, a bit baffled at the command.

"You heard me; emergency lights too. And emergency radio waves as well." The human instructed the AI.

"That's still not going to take very long commander." Solipsil replied, "But are you saying you want-"

"Everything shut down, yes." The commander explained, "I want all the energy and power of everything that's connected to this ship, and not a computer, to be transfered over to the antigrave deflectors. And I want all of the energy from Main Canons Bravo and Dora, and all the energy from secondary guns 1-24 to be transfered over to the antigraves as well. I want Alpha and Caesar to be running at 50 energy. Engine cores should be running at 100 until we get the chance to make our jump through sub-space. Oh, and you can stay on Solipsil. Is that all clear?"

"Yes ma'am, just give the word." the blue figure responded.

Heather flipped the ALL DEACKS switch once again and spoke as her voice echoed throughout the hallways of the entire ship, "This is commander Cole speaking. We will soon be engaging the Covenant fleet using standard hit-and-run tactics. During this time, we will be running without lights or radio contact until further notice. It is advised that all personnel grab on to anything directly connected with the ship, and to hang on tight as we will be making a blind jump through sub-space. Any reports of horseplay, or mischief will result in feeding Snouts without a suit. That is all."

_Judicator_ was home to many Marines, officers, and high members of the ONI, but it was also the prison of a captured Covenant grunt named Snouts. After being studied on the ship for numerous years, Snouts had learned that his human captors would not harm him, and he lost his fear of them. But instead of becoming friendly and somewhat domesticated, he had learned that they would never harm him; _no mater how much he harmed them_. He would savagely attack his captors in any way possible, and the crew of _Judicator_ was forced to use specialized protection suits whenever it was necessary to feed him. Usually this procedure involved 6 suited up individuals who worked together to hold the creature down and force feed him as he had tried to starve himself to death in the past. It was considered the largest punishment on the ship to 'feed Snouts without a suit', meaning to feed him wearing nothing at all. And Snouts did have his pointy ends.

"Did you get all of that Musket?" Heather asked as she turned back to the viewing screen.

"Yes ma'am!" The HSSC said as he saluted as best he could.

"Good." Heather replied, "You take control of Canon Caesar, and Solipsil will help you out with Alpha. Remember you two, we want to get enough of their attention that they want to chase after us, nothing more. All right, let's do it. For Reach."

"For Reach." Musket replied as his image faded out and disappeared on the screen.

"For Reach." Solipsil repeated as the AI snapped her fingers, the sound of which seemed to echo throughout every single last wall of _Judicator_ until it reached the outer hull, and the vacuum of space which was now as dark and silent as the inside of the ship. _Judicator_ was slowly moving out from behind the moon and the only thing between it, and the largest Covenant fleet ever seen.

FIN!

Hope you enjoyed it! I also hope that this shows that I'm not all about things like _Can I Push Your Button?_, I have my serious side.

Now I can fully understand if someone might think that this is a bad fic over all or so far, but that's why I say to you now that I am not afraid of the fires of your flames. But still, as my little poem goes...

R&R or give me a flame,

for I shall read them all the same.

(Hey, I made a rhyme!)

So Read and Review, (Bambie Eyes) pleeeeeease!

Second chapter should be posted in roughly two weeks.


	2. Making the jump

Let me start out this chapter by responding to a few of my reviewers. 1st off, Spartans were in fact people of ancient Greece. They were a part of the city Sparta, which concentrated so much of its society around military, that they made very few historical documents of their actual culture. Their individual soldiers were drafted into the army at about age 8 (or maybe it was 12) and were trained almost nonstop until they reached adulthood. It all paid off however, when the Spartan's attacked the city of Athens and beat the Athens army. (Authors note; I learned all of this in 7th grade, flame me if any of my history is incorrect) It is obvious as to why the project for making cyborgs like Master Chief were named after these people.

Also, as an F.Y.I., Solipsil is mentioned in that nifty little booklet that comes with the collector's edition DVD of Halo 2 called 'Conversations from the Universe'. Also, Solipsil is not an actual word in the English language, but _solipsism_ is the philosophical thinking that nothing can exist outside of ones own ego and selfness.

I probably sound like a bit of a nerd right now with all this talk of ancient Greece, and various forms of philosophy. But the point I'm trying to make is that throughout both Halo games, there are numerous tie-ins with real world things.

ONWARD!

While _Judicator _edged about the moon, the crew members with port-side windows looked out to see the battle that was raging above Reach's atmosphere. It was not a battle, it was a massacre.

The Covenant fleet had utilized their more advanced ship engines to make a jump through sub-space that landed them right in front of the planet's defensive perimeter. No one had expected this sudden assault, and within two to three minutes the Covenant fleet had blasted a hole through the outer defenses with little or no resistance, and had begun bombarding the planet's surface with its many weapons. They came not from one direction but from all sides, and there were now too few ships in the UNSC forces to make a formable resistance, or escort out whatever survivors they could from the doomed planet. It was a hopeless battle, and _Judicator_ could not possibly turn the tide of it, but there was nothing more that they could do.

As Private Phil Harrison on deck five watched in horror as the surface of the once green, lush planet he had known as home turn to a charred black, Lieutenant Sera Larken on the third deck fought with the strong urge to reach for the pistol at on her belt and commit suicide right then and there to be with her newly departed loved ones in the afterlife. Corporal Jason Brown on deck twelve failed at holding back his tears as he stared sadly at the letter he had been writing to his wife and children whom he knew were now dead, Master Sergeant Mackenzie Hill on deck eight turned his face away from the terrible sight of his window that he knew he didn't want to see, Petty Officer Sean Greenwood on deck fifteen clutched his battle rifle tightly thinking of nothing but revenge, Engineer Alice King on deck eight spilt her cup of hot coffee all over her control panel as she looked out the window in shock, and Commander Heather Cole on the command deck sat calmly in her chair despite the extreme volume of her crying in her head, and the tenseness of the rage in her muscles.

Heather knew she was stronger than this, knew that she had to be the one to lead every one of her crew members, knew that no matter how unbearable the pain was of seeing an entire planet that she had grown up on being incinerated she should not crack under the pressure. But despite her training, her strength, and her discipline, she was only human.

"Solipsil." Heather quietly called to the AI with her eyes closed and her hands squeezing the metal of her armrests.

"Yes, commander." replied the holographic figure of a woman that gave the bridge of the command deck a beautiful bluish glow in its darkness.

"Please." the human insisted, "Call me by my name."

"You're full name?" the AI asked.

"No." she responded as she opened her eyes, "Just 'Heather' will do nicely."

"Alright Heather," Solipsil complied as her 'feelings' programs kicked in. She said in a low voice filled with compassion and understanding, "what can I help you with."

"Solipsil, why would the Covenant do this? Why would they take so many lives like this?" Heather asked in a saddened tone. She figured the rest of her life could be measured in weeks now, maybe even days or hours. If this was to be a rare moment of rest, then she wanted to make the most of it.

"Well, there are many theories." Solipsil said, "There are some who believe they are angered with the way we harvest our materials; like Titan-VIII, the planet that was composed of nothing but titanium that humanity slowly chipped away at until it wasn't there anymore..."

"No, that's not what I meant." Heather explained, "I mean what do _you_ think? What is _your_ opinion?"

"_My_ opinion, Heather?" Solipsil asked in a slightly confused manner.

"Yes." She confirmed, "What do you, personally think of this entire situation? I mean, I'm sitting here trying to live with the fact that my sisters... my brother... my... mother... my... my..." She closed her eyes and her face twisted up as she furiously fought back her tears of sorrow, but couldn't. She rested her face in one of her hands as she quietly wept for a moment. "My... cousins... all of my relatives except for my father who is safe at Earth; I'm trying to deal with the fact that now almost everyone in my family... is... dead..." Her face was once again resting in her propped-up hand as she silently shed some more tears.

When Heather came out of her moment of sorrow, she noticed how Solipsil's holographic projection was siting on her shoulder, and patting the back of her head as if to to comfort her. Heather was well aware of the emotions that AI constructs were capable of. Anger, joy, fear, courage, humor, determination, and even cockiness were just a few of their emotions but the way Solipsil was acting now was something Heather had never expected to see in anything other than a real human. She knew that the small figure of a woman on her shoulder was just an image and nothing more but for some reason, Solipsil's small 'body' felt... warm.

"Go on, Heather. You can do it." Solipsil assured her in a soft comforting voice. Heather kept trying to convince herself that it was an _artificial_ person, but Solipsil was just too real.

"...And," The commander continued, "I know... this may seem like a silly question, but have you ever lost anyone... special in your life?"

After a moment of thought Solipsil replied, "Well, I'm sure you're aware of Connie René Tana."

"Yes." Heather replied, coming out of her sorrow a bit as she wiped away the tears, "She was the one who found a way to create AI constructs. I understand that Cortana was her first and best masterpiece."

"True." Solipsil replied, "I was actually the second of the fifty AI constructs she made before we were mass-produced. I recall everything about her; how she made us in her own image, how she taught us the ways of the universe, mathematics, human history, philosophy, physics, nature, military, and especially emotions. I suppose you could say that I was one of her children and she was our mother."

"And what did you do when she died?" Heather asked as she recalled reading in the news how Dr. Tana had been killed by covenant forces when the colony she was working at had been surprise-attacked. It was considered perhaps one of the greatest losses of all human history; the woman who had given birth to artificial intelligence, had been killed at the hands of the enemy.

"Well, bluntly put," Solipsil explained, "I became very saddened, and very angered with revenge. I quickly became aware that I was emotionally unstable, and I decided to override these feelings before I did anything too rash."

"But I can't do something like that Solipsil." Heather said, "I mean... I am only human. I cannot simply forget about the ones I've lost."

After a moment of deep thought Solipsil said, "Then think about the four thousand, five hundred crew members who are currently counting on you to lead them. Think of what your family would expect you to do if they were here. Think of the glorification that people will give you as the leader of one of only two ships to escape the attack on Reach."

"Glory?" Heather asked with a surprised look in her eyes, "There is no glory in this, we are only trying to disorganize the Covenant fleet as much as possible, we can do no real damage against them. I don't think that anyone who knows of us will tell anyone else. We have no hope of survival; the _Pillar of Autumn_ does. Hope is perhaps the last thing that we have going for us in this war. Nobody wants to hear about a lost ship with no hope anymore. True; we may take a few Covenant lives, we may even destroy a ship if we are forced to self-destruct-"

"Then let us look forward to that." Solipsil stated as the AI floated off of Heather's shoulder and in front of her face, "Let us look forward to the fact that while all of our fates may be sealed, we may as well take some of them with us. But you will have to lead us."

"True." The commander replied, "I will do that. What's our current situation?"

"Well Heather," Solipsil said as the AI snapped into military awareness, "a few shots have been fired our way, but they've either been poorly aimed, or the antigraves are working at well over 430 percent. We have 14 capitol ships turning around towards us and they will soon be advancing on us, joined with the largest swarm of boarding craft I've ever seen I might add, in roughly 70 seconds."

"Sounds good," Heather nodded as she called to her pilot and navigator in front of her, "James, Marcus; set coordinates for sector Eight-Five-Oh-Two, I want us to be ready to make a jump in less than a minute."

"Ma'am," Marcus, the pilot, protested as he turned around, "we may not be aligned perfectly with that particular-"

"JUST DO IT!" Heather screamed at him and almost got out of her seat in the process.

Marcus quickly uttered a slightly fearful 'Yes, Ma'am!' before he turned around and began hurriedly moving the ship towards the designated location. Heather knew that the end was near for all of them and this should be a time of understanding and not anger, but she was not in the mood for excuses.

"Heather," Solipsil said after giving her a few short moments to cool down, "What are you're orders for after we come out of sub-space?"

"I want full power restored to all star-side guns," the commander began stating, "I want the ship to come out of CGS and have everybody ready to abandon ship if necessary. I want everything and everyone on high alert, because they're going to be coming after us real fast."

"We may not have enough power for all of that after making a jump, but I'll do the best I can." Solipsil replied. "I just need to... Oh, HELL!"

"What!" Heather asked. It wasn't often that Solipsil acted surprised, and when the Ai did; it meant trouble.

"I'm tracking multiple hostile projectiles headed our way." Solipsil dictated, "Speed is roughly 23 kilometers per second, This is the kind of stuff they're using on the surface of Reach! They're firing _bombs_ at us! Our antigraves won't stand a chance against them."

"Are you sure?" Heather asked, franticly thinking of a way out of this situation.

"I'm positive! We'll have impact in less than seventeen seconds." Solipsil said.

"DAMN!" Heather cursed, "James, Marcus; we need to make the jump now!"

"Now!" They both asked in astonishment at the order.

"If you don't, we are all going to die in thirteen seconds!" Heather explained, "Do it now!"

James Robinson and Marcus Grant were good navigators and pilots. They worked well together, and were very experienced, but that didn't change the fact that it took roughly five seconds for them to ready the ship for a such a sudden jump.

_Judicator_ suddenly slammed forward in the motion. It was not traveling towards it's designated direction, an uncharted path in fact, but the important thing was that it was a non Earth-bound trajectory. Travel time was short, practically instantaneous, and therefore uneventful.

The ship suddenly came to a halt and Heather was flung forward in her seat a bit, but held herself in place. The lights suddenly came back on and Heather called out, "Solipsil, assessment."

"Looks like that was a smooth flight under the circumstances commander." Solipsil explained, "I'm currently searching for any recognizable constellations to get an idea of where we are, but I'm not picking up anything."

"What about the planet in front of us?" Heather asked as there was a distinctly large planet of a beautiful blue color in front of them.

"Analyzing...! It's not a planet humans have discovered yet," The light-blue figure explained, "but there appears to be satellite of sorts orbiting it."

"Is it of Covenant design?" Heather inquired as she searched the blueness with her eyes for any form of satellite.

"If it is, then it's like nothing we've encountered before, but it's... well... let me show you." An image appeared next to Solipsil. It was fuzzy at first but the image sharpened and reveled a circular object. It looked like a large, thin ring more than anything else.

"Do you have any idea what that thing could be Solipsil?" Heather said as she gave the image a puzzled look.

"I can't tell form here," Solipsil explained, "but I think that if we got closer I could- OH GOD!"

"Wha-?" was all the commander was able to say before Solipsil cut her off.

"Hostile projectile moving towards us!' Solipsil yelled, "There are multiple Covenant ships to our stern! They were _waiting_ for us! Impact in 4... 3..."

"Brace for impact!" Heather yelled over the radio, "I repeat! Brace for imp-!" She was flung out of her seat.

FIN!

Whoa! I made a cliff hanger!

Go ahead, Make a guess as to where I'm going with this plot! I dare you! (Well, no I don't actually...)

Hope you liked it. By my reckoning, chapter three is going to be a looooooooooong one, and I'll actually have some actual fighting in it aside from the Star-Trek stuff in here so far. Next chapter might be up in about 2 weeks, but that's a big 'might'. I am after all going to be starting school really soon, and homework will cut up my writing schedule like safety-scissors through potatoes in an first grade Arts-and-Crafts class!

R&R or give me a flame,

For I shall read them all the same!


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